Into Darkness
by Death Row Six
Summary: DedSec finally made their threats a reality and Chicago is plunged into total darkness within a matter of hours. With anarchy spreading like wildfire and Chicago's most dangerous criminals roaming the streets, Aiden takes the matter into his own hands, this time without the help of the cTOS system by his side.
1. Degrade

**Authors Note:** Hello everyone! This was a plotline that I thought of as I sat around. I got a good bit of influence from a scene of a movie I will name later. I want to try and make this as interesting as I can, I'd hate it to be bland and boring or simply bad writing. I also don't want to rush it or drag it out, so I'm trying to figure out the right pacing for this story. Reviews are welcome, I'd love to read about what I should improve on or what I did right.

Chapter 1

"Degrade"

For most, time passed quicker as people got older, months became weeks, weeks into days, and days into hours, until finally, minutes into seconds. Chicago breathed the fast life, it thrived and fed upon the social scene, time was nothing but a forgotten concept. Aiden Pearce was the exception, time was slow for a man who did not see the past and could not see the future.

He was stuck upon a limbo of perpetual motion. Yet, in the two years that has crawled past Aiden, he still managed to watch over the city patiently like a king over his kingdom.

Still, being at the top was lonely, what was a king without his confidants, nothing but a man who held a golden scepter in his hand. This slow realization took a toll upon his life, relapsing into periodic alcoholism and having most of his days spent in Digital Trips to escape reality. Between his sorrow and his silence, he continued to be The Vigilante.

Back then, being The Vigilante had more meaning to him, now it held a hollow weight within his heart. Aiden felt lost, in both his life and his 'purpose'. He didn't wear the mask to become an icon or to become an urban legend, he wore it to simply hide a man who wanted to fix a mess he stepped into. He was heralded as a hero and as a criminal, yet he was just a man behind it all.

Still, Aiden upheld the mantle as if it was a beautiful rose with thorns. If he didn't do it, who will? It was a question that kept him going all these two years, he didn't need recognition or the limelight for it, just the satisfaction. The king sat in his throne, monitoring the recent activity of any trouble makers within the 'kingdom'.

"What's this?" he muttered, leaning forward from his relaxed position. The chair creaked and he rolled the mouse cursor over a news article that caught his eye.

The headline read, _"SOUTHSIDE SYNDICATE, THE NEW BLACK VICEROYS?"_. He skimmed it silently with the low whir of the computers and towers in the background. Aiden had heard of the Southside Syndicate, after he had crippled the Black Viceroys tremendously, the Syndicate had begun its movement. The forty-one year old did all in his power to try and contain the gang's influence, however he found it incredibly difficult.

"A string of murders has rocked The Wards… a family in Englewood had been brutally murdered, with the Syndicate being the main perpetrators…" Aiden muttered, his hand stroking the stubble upon his face. His emerald eyes squinted and his brow furrowed in temporary anger.

Aiden swiftly pushed himself from the desktop and leaned back upon his chair, a creaking sound echoed through the empty Bunker. He looked around and took a deep breath, Aiden then reached over to a small whiskey glass and picked it up. He took a slight sip from it, deciding he would focus himself into stopping the Syndicate.

He set the glass down with a heavy hand and sighed, "I have to find the head of the snake." Aiden then stood up and pushed his swivel chair into the desk. Afterwards, he picked up the whiskey glass and bottle to go put it into his small mini fridge. He closed the fridge door with a _thud_ and turned his head to glance at the desk cluttered with equipment.

Aiden tried not to remember who sat at that desk, who aided him those some two to three years ago. He stood there, looking at it as if he could see her voice. Maybe he missed her, he missed the voice, the face and the everyday small interactions he had with her. She was a distant memory within the back of his mind, someone who he tried not to remember.

Yet, something within him wanted to remember her. Aiden didn't know if someone held memories of her, if not, why not him? She never told him anything about her family except her dad, yet that was all he knew. She was good at disappearing, but he didn't want her to disappear, not now, maybe not ever.

"Ah, _fuck_. I gotta-… I have to stop doing this shit." Aiden seethed, heading back to his desk. He rubbed the side of his face and plopped himself down onto his swivel chair. Aiden grabbed the remote and turned the TV on to watch the news, what he saw next astonished him.

"Yes, I'm getting word from officials that the control center for the Metropolitan Correctional Center has malfunctioned. Over four hundred prisoners have been released and have started a riot- oh wait!... " the news reporter put her hand over ear to listen in on her earpiece.

"I've just gotten word that the Cook County Jail has suffered the same dilemma, it seems that something has gone wrong with the network-"

Suddenly, the news reporter was shadowed by darkness. "It seems that Chicago has suffered a blackout, it should be up at any moment, sorry folks. Jacob, make sure that the backup power is still going, we can't let this affect us." Aiden was glad that the Bunker ran on its power generator, otherwise he would have a huge problem.

"Oh, okay- Jacob turn the light onto that camera. It appears that the blackout is lasting much longer than usual, citizens are _encouraged_ to stay home and not go out at this moment." Car horns and tires screeching could be heard in the background, Aiden was afraid that this would degrade into chaos.

Aiden was more intrigued by the sudden jail break outs, he grabbed the remote and turned the TV off. He turned his chair to his desktop and ground his teeth together in worry.

"A blackout right after a network failure in two jails. This is no coincidence." His fingers rapped the keyboard furiously, trying to find answers upon various social networking websites.

This was one of the advantages of a city obsessed with social media, you could get so much information about an event with whoever was near it. He watched a few videos on some websites and read various comments, trying to piece together the scene before he actually went out for himself.

"Bingo." Aiden pieced together the situation and found that the network had failed due to a breakout of bugs and viruses. cTOS was just as vulnerable as a human body, it could get sick so easily and even succumb to it. "But how does simple malware get into a state of the art network?" he spoke softly.

Aiden needed to know who did it, and better yet, why they did it. However it wouldn't be easy, he needed to work from what he had right now, and what he had was close to nothing.

**Author's Note:** Hey, thanks for reading this chapter! I have the rest of the chapters generally outlined already and I'll try to release them after I get some feedback upon this chapter. I may do changes to the chapters after the reviews I get on this one. I promise there will be more to the story in the coming chapters, new characters, plot points, etc. etc. Till we meet again.

D.R.S


	2. Riot

Author's Note: I hope this explains more of what's going on. Enjoy!

Chapter 2

"Riot"

Chicago was not getting any better than it was before, the infrastructure was slowly decaying within a matter of an hour. Aiden didn't spend time watching the news, instead he grabbed his long coat, hat, and face mask to investigate for himself. He knew there were only a few groups who could commit something so catastrophic to the cTOS system.

"Alright, let's see here…" he murmured as he took the elevator up and out of the bunker.

He stepped into the darkness, finding himself standing in darkness. All he could see was the reflection of the moon against the water and the moon's light upon the city. A

Aiden could hear distant sirens, but they didn't fade. The air nipped at his nose as he stood around longer, it was mid-winter and Mother Nature didn't relent for anyone.

"People would be crazy as hell to drive in darkness."

Aiden's boots hit the ground as he made his way away from the Bunker and out towards the bridge. Using the bridge was easier, since he could just walk across rather than swim. He used the device Tobias had, however the bridge didn't budge an inch. His brow furrowed as he clicked it once more.

"Ah, shit. You've got to be kidding me." he grunted.

'_The power must have cut out the bridges too. But if that's the case… getting around the city may be more difficult than I thought.'_ He pocketed the remote within his jacket and headed down towards the water. He was more than skeptical about entering the water, especially at these temperatures. Still, he had little to no choice considering there was no boat nearby.

Aiden slipped into the water slowly and began to paddle, he shivered at the water that enveloped him as he swam. The wind that blew at him didn't make anything better, it made it worse, and he could barely feel his face. Stumbling onto land, he quickly pulled the face mask over his face to protect his face from the wind.

"I haven't had a swim like that in ages." Aiden breathed, shivering from his garments.

Aiden pulled out his phone, safely hidden in a waterproof pouch within his jacket. The screen lit up and he began to pull up information he had hooked up into his cloud storage.

The man kept important information he gathered within a cloud storage he made himself. Aiden pulled up DedSec's folder first, reading over it as he walked.

He glanced up and down when he walked, keen of his surroundings. "It has to be these guys, who else would be stupid enough to shut down the whole city."

Aiden was making his way down towards the Metropolitan Correctional Center, his fears were growing that the prison suffered from his digital attack.

The MCC was reliant upon the cTOS system, however it ran on its own generators. Still, anyone who could be posing as a guard could enter the building and plant a bug within the system to trip it off.

As Aiden entered the city, he navigated the alleyways to avoid the now packed streets. Night dwellers from clubs, restaurants, and other gatherings ushered themselves into the street like herded cows.

Cellphone screens illuminated the worried faces of Chicago like a spotlight, while Aiden swam in the darkness of the alleys. Cars stood still in the streets, headlights beamed and illuminated anything around and in front of them. Chatter was a distant hush for The Vigilante and people crowded one another in comfort.

Darkness was a concept that didn't comfort most people, especially not in a city of flashing lights and constants. People were growing weary of the lack of light. Aiden couldn't blame them, like what T-Bone said, bad things happen when the lights go out. For now, the lights would stay out until sunrise.

Aiden used his phone to navigate himself to the MCC to monitor it, yet he didn't even need to get close to see. The front of the building was wasted, glass from the lobby door laid in shattered pieces and the words Metropolitan Correctional Center was only left with a few letters.

He could hear the distant shouts and sounds of shattering glass from cars and storefronts.

"They got out, damn, where's the police?" Aiden did see cop car lights on the other side of the building, but he saw no movement. _'The prisoners must have used the riot gear in the facility, but if they're out wandering with that stuff, this is a much bigger problem than I thought. ' _

"Well, well, well! Vigilante, what a coincidence!" a voice boomed.

Aiden's head looked over his shoulder to see an inmate in a prison jumpsuit. The name Vigilante wasn't always so popular with the orange jumpsuits, just the definition alone didn't flow well for them.

He was so caught up in his thoughts he didn't see the man come from around. A bullet soared past his head and he quickly darted away. Aiden pressed himself against a dumpster as he heard footsteps quickly get closer and closer.

Aiden came out of cover and grabbed the prisoner's collar, then slammed him against the wall. He extended the baton and took a swing at the man's arms. The inmate yelled and dropped his gun, before using his able arm to try and push Aiden away.

The Vigilante stood back and swung the baton up from the side to strike the man in the face, who was now unconscious on the floor. He pushed the end of the baton down to retract it back into its compact size.

His foot hit the gun, making a small rattle which caught his slightest attention.

"I needed this, thanks." Aiden grabbed the gun on the floor and kneeled over the inmate's body. He patted him for extra bullets and he found a few spares within the pockets.

He wanted more information on who Dedsec's plans, he knew just who to 'contact'. Aiden hunted down a certain mouse before who went by Defalt. However, his true name was JB Marcowicz, a man who was the next closest link he had to Dedsec aside from his dead confidant.

The man was lucky he even spared him, he was hesitant on killing him that day. New beginnings and all were nice words of comfort, yet Aiden could only give it but never receive it.

Aiden pulled up information on his phone, it was almost as flexible as a computer. "Where are you hiding…" he muttered. Aiden found that he was living in a motel within The Wards, a very run down shady hotel.

'_I should probably pay him a visit. Hopefully he'll be more cooperative this time around. Otherwise I'm going to have to bust out the old methods.'_

Aiden would have preferred to take a car or a motorcycle, but the streets were packed with cars honking at one another and angry civilians. Biking wasn't going to be useful either considering the streets were littered with people and the alleyways were full of road bumps he couldn't see.

"This a perfect shitstorm they created." he growled, slinking away towards the given location.

Entering The Wards with this blackout was suicide, but what else could he do? Aiden arrived at the hotel within a matter of minutes entering The Wards.

Sunrise was just around the corner and even then, he'd be even more in danger now that he had little cover. "Damn, which room is it…"

A few gunshots rang nearby and people from another part of the hallway ran another direction. His pace quickened into a jog, until it became a full on sprint. Aiden stopped dead in his tracks as he saw one of the apartment doors wide open.

His pistol came from his side and he slowly pressed himself on the other side of the entrance. Aiden could hear chatter, one of them was talking on the phone. He peaked quickly to see there was a computer on the table. He pulled his phone out and hacked into the device to see two men on the other side of the room.

He quickly shoved his phone within his jacket and darted inside gun first. Aiden dispatched the first one quickly, before kicking the chair in front of him to hit the other man. The chair temporarily crippled him just in time for Aiden to plant a bullet right into his head.

The Vigilante took a breath and nudged one of the gunmen over with his foot.

Aiden's foot hit another body, this time it was a man blindfolded and face down onto the ground. He inspected that there were three bullet wounds in his head. Aiden turned him over and snapped his head away from the dead man's expression.

"Fuck, this is a problem."

Author's Note: Hey! I hope this chapter had a bit more than what you read in the last one. I'm open to suggestions and criticisms to improve the story. Thanks again for reading.

DRS.


End file.
